Your local permitting dept. can and should tell you since you are paying their salaries.

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Not so much. My area doesnt allow residents to do their own plumbing or electrical, so they frown on questions like this and wont issue a permit unless I am a professional AND approved by the city!!!

Funny thing is, they do not inspect homes at the time of sale. So unless a neigbor calls and complains, or a pro pulls a permit and its time to inspect the work....no permit means no problem for anyone until its too late and something goes wrong.

Make up some story - your cranky loner of a neighbor who wears a tinfoil hat and lives a few blocks over has this pipe thing but you don't remember exactly where he lives and you weren't sure what you saw,
and you were wondering if this is legal.
Be creative!
Do your part to promote transparency in gov'mint and all that BS.

Has it ever occurred to you that there might be a very good reason why they do not want you doing your own tasks unless you are a "competent contractor"?? There are many local restrictions, such as, "exterior gas lines must be galvanized" (a requirement in this area), which come into play on outside gas lines.

Has it ever occurred to you that there might be a very good reason why they do not want you doing your own tasks unless you are a "competent contractor"?? There are many local restrictions, such as, "exterior gas lines must be galvanized" (a requirement in this area), which come into play on outside gas lines.

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Am I a licensed pro? Nope. I am an M.E. But I've been plumbing for over 20 years, gas and water. No need to explain my background though...this site is here for exactly this reason...isnt it???

Running black pipe is very easy, I am simply making sure I am doing the right thing here. Obviously its not a simple answer to my simple question....OH BUT WAIT...I finally got a hold of someone useful: The lead inspector for my city. And to my surprise the answer IS simple and he was more than willing to answer my question.

No problem running PAINTED black pipe under a deck ATTACHED to the house and ABOVE grade. Were those two points missing, things change and you have to go underground and then come back up to the deck. For this project, its the same as running it inside the home, but the pipe is properly painted.